1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of image processing. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image processing method and apparatus by which, when an image is captured, a face area of the image may be processed to have a soft image quality. The present invention also relates to a digital photographic apparatus using the image processing method and apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Technologies for detecting an object, such as a face, from an image captured by a digital camera and processing the image according to a detection result of the object are being developed more and more in recent times. For example, technologies for adjusting white balance or controlling whether to use a camera flash, in accordance with the brightness of a subject, are being developed more and more.
Meanwhile, users of digital cameras desire their pictures to look more pleasant and brighter. An inconvenience exists to such users with regard to transferring the pictures stored in the digital cameras to personal computers (PCs) and editing the pictures by using image editing programs such as Photoshop.
According to such needs of digital camera users, currently released digital cameras include a functionality to take photographs that look bright. This is a so-called “bright mode” function. When a person is photographed utilizing this “bright mode” function, a generally bright and blurred photograph can be obtained and, particularly, facial skin of the photographed subject appears soft.
However, when utilizing this “bright mode” function, a subject's face can be detected from a captured image and, if the subject's face is detected, the whole image is blurred, thereby reducing the resolution of the whole image. In particular, in such an instance, the whole face is blurred reducing a visibility of the whole face. For example, in such instances, the subject's pupils look unclear, the subject's hair is not naturally expressed, and the subject's accessories situated near the subject's face also look unclear.